


Bad Ideas Worse Intentions

by YesYesNoBro



Category: Villainous (Cartoon)
Genre: Mentions of Violence, Multi, Pushy black hat, Rating will go up, Social Anxiety, The practicalities of living with a bag on your head, Violence, dark-ish themes, slowish burn, tags will be added as story progresses, their relationship is gonna be as healthy as I can make it I swear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 09:43:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11506785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YesYesNoBro/pseuds/YesYesNoBro
Summary: Dr. Flug is a good intentioned, intelligent, socially anxious wreck of a former student, newly released into the "real world" and dead broke.Black Hat is a super villain arms dealer. With his last scientist found "mysteriously dead" he has a position to fill. Consensually, or not.





	Bad Ideas Worse Intentions

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there, I'm back to writing fan fic after a long absence. This is a story I'm kinda just writing for fun so don't expect too much in terms of a solid update schedule or a 100% guarantee that I will finish it. It's looking like it's gonna be around 50,000 words if I do finish it, but like I said, don't expect much. 
> 
> Anyways, rating WILL GO UP, this isn't a super dark fic but expect more serious themes in later chapters, additional tags and warnings will be added with each update. 
> 
> Feed back is appreciated, thank you all.

If there was one thing Flug had come to learn in his short, painful 26 years of existence it was that life is hard. 

Life doesn't cut people who don't function well breaks, and Flug was far from a perfectly functioning human being. This wasn't to say he was a complete wreck, the term that would best describe him would be "savant". He was extremely, excessively good with numbers, equations, problem solving, and when it came to anything that could be counted, categorized, and quantified, he knew exactly what to do. 

This talent lent itself extremely well to the field of science and engineering, and demanded a strict, structured educational environment. It was only the best and most rigorous schools for him from a young age. The brightest of teachers would be made to lay out problem after problem for him to solve. Projects, worksheets, lab reports, research papers, he would pull it all off without a hitch. 

Flug thought that he was good at life. Compared to his peers he was more than a step above, and he would have continued to believe this, if it was not for what happened when he was around 11.

Flug preferred not to think about the events of that year, but their impact upon him had been glaring and inescapable, however much he tried to forget. Ultimately he had to acknowledge, that despite the obvious catalyst, it was only a matter of time before his social anxiety manifested and crippled him in the way it did that year. It would have happened sooner of later. 

It started, like many problems do, with concerned parents 

Noticing their child's glaring lack of social skills, they sent him away to summer camp for 2 months in attempt to "round him out", figuring it would be bad for Flug to spend his entire childhood cooped up in his room with his work instead of making friends and forming normal relationships. 

This did not go well. 

Flug was not used to so much autonomy. He was not used to having to interact with other children. He was not used to group work. He was not used to anything outside the confines of his own mind, and the shock that a world so different existed away from his equations and inventions and neat, comforting numbers left him reeling. 

Flug felt terribly inadequate and misplaced around others. He was overcome with the constant pressing feeling that he wasn't supposed to be there, and that everyone knew it. It seemed like everyone was looking at him, and no matter what he did, he could not get them to stop. Nothing was familiar, nothing was right, he didn't have control over his environment, and he couldn't understand what was happening. It was social anxiety metastasized into a phobia or everyone and everything that tried to interact with him. 

Panic attacks and mental shutdowns happened on the daily during his time at camp, unable to even contact his parents at the behest of the councilors that insisted he spend some time away from them and learn not be so dependent. Flug was breaking down. 

Then it happened. One day during a crafts session another kid asked Flug why he was "so weird" when he opted to count and sort macaroni rather than make a face out of it, and in a last ditch effort to stop himself from hyperventilating and crying uncontrollably he took the paper bag he was supposed to be practicing his "calm, steady breathing" into, and instead put it over his head. 

And he never took it off. 

It helped not being able to be seen by other people. Faces were intimate things, and Flug could not handle people looking at his, judging it, judging him, analyzing his every expression and some how gleaning knowledge from it. It was terrifying. If people didn't see his face they couldn't really judge him, they couldn't really tell he didn't belong or that there was something "wrong" with him. The bag made him feel safe, it made socializing manageable, and it made life complicated. 

After his parents, teachers, and eventually, therapists, tried to get him to take the bag off, all with disastrous results, everyone seemed to just collectively decide that this was the way things were now. 

Flug wasn't "the brilliant child" anymore, he was the brilliant freak. 

For a while this was ok. Schools were willing to look past his eccentricities, and Flug went on to complete several graduate and undergraduate courses in fields like engineering, chemical engineering, biology, and quantum mechanics. He even earned a doctorate. All in record time. 

The events of camp and the complications of his social anxiety were pushed back and replaced with a renewed devotion to all things technical. His problems and his shortcomings didn't seem that big when he was so entranced with his work and he received so much praise for it. He felt like he had found his place, like he was accepted despite his eccentricities and despite his ever present paper bag. 

But the illusion of normalcy wouldn't last forever and soon the startling reality of his situation began to set upon him the way the cold sets upon a camper as the last embers of their dying flame shrivel and dissolve. 

He needed a real job. He needed to leave school, and he needed to start paying off the massive debt that accumulated with every course he took not entirely covered by scholarship.

The realization that he had no idea what he was doing in the "real world" fully hit him when he was standing alone, in his first dingy 1 bedroom apartment, holding the last cardboard box of his belongings just brought up from the moving van downstairs. He wasn't cut out for this. While life seemed so easy written out on paper, that couldn't have been anything farther from the truth, and no amount of superficial book smarts and higher education was going to spare him from the bloodied, merciless jaws of reality. 

\---

"Excuse me doctor," a very distinguished looking man, sat at a table of other distinguished looking men (who looked all together intimidating and painfully unoriginal), chimed in. 

"Yes?" Flug questioned, bringing his arm down from his presentation board to address him. 

"Pardon my asking, but what is that on your head?" 

Oh no. 

Not again.

It always went like this. Flug would spend days summoning the courage to leave his house for an interview or a pitch, and he would finally get there only to be interrogated by someone, sometimes multiple someones, not about his ideas, or his merits, but about his bag. This was the 12th time, and in response the tired man elicited and soft, painfully high scream audible only to himself and his anguish. 

"This is a bag, sir." As if it wasn't obvious.

"And why are you wearing a bag, Dr. Flug?" 

"For therapeutic reasons." The answer was always the same, vague, short, as honest as he could make it while not sounding like an insane person. "Now if you'll allow me to get back to my presentation-"

"Thank you, but I think we've seen enough here." Another one of the people at the table spoke up, sounding much more stern than the last. "If we're all in agreement I think I'd like to end it here." A murmur of affirmation bubbled up from the group. 

"But sir, I haven't even gotten to the part about-" 

"That will be all Doctor." Said the same guy, now standing along side several of the others who had risen with him. He and the rest of the men moved to usher Flug outside of the conference room. 

"Wait please! Just give me a chance, I promise I won't disappoint you!" He began to panic, he was running out of options, he desperately needed this position and the money that it promised. He didn't want to think about how much he needed it, if he thought to deeply he would panic, but his voice still cracked and he still scrambled in a vain attempt to convince the men otherwise. 

"Again, thank you, but I think we would prefer to hire someone who will take this job a little more seriously." The man was crowding him towards the exit, forcing him outside. The others standing behind the defacto leader eyed Flug as he was forced out of the room, them looked exasperated and amused, and it was sickening. 

"But I am taking it seriously! I promise just listen to my pitch!" And then the door was abruptly but predictably shut in his face.

Like so many time before Flug's hopes dropped but this particular failure marked a new low for him. This interview was the last stop on the list of viable open positions in the area, and being turned away from here meant the remaining optimism that he would find work in this city had been completely and thoroughly crushed. 

Flug wasn't asking for too much, was he? Maybe he shouldn't have let his anxiety get the better of him and actually went to those job placement activities his last school held so often. But Flug had wanted to choose where he worked and he wanted to work in heroics. Designing useful inventions for good people with the best of intentions. He wanted to make a positive difference, he wanted to go down in history as a person who made real change. But maybe that dream was too lofty. Maybe his parents and all those teachers he had when he was younger had lied to him when they said that one day he would do great things. 

Flug didn't like the real world, but he knew he couldn't escape it forever.

The real world didn't like him either. If the shut door before of him was any indication. 

Defeated he slammed his head against the door, trying to knock sense into himself and inflict pain simultaneously. He heard the stiff paper of his bag crumple against the hardwood and he slid down to rest in a crouched position on the floor. 

There were people looking at him again, others sitting on the benches outside the room waiting for their turn, waiting for their chance, and chance he no longer had. 

Flug wasn't sure if they were giving him looks of pity or disgust, it was always those two emotions. Either people pitied him because he was pathetic and "crazy" or people were repulsed by him because he was pathetic and "crazy". It depended on if the person had a messiah complex or a superiority complex, and in this line of work, it was always one of the two. He would have killed to meet someone who didn't look at him and see only a total wreck not worthy of any real consideration. 

Flug didn't even bother looking at or addressing the other interviewees. He stood up, brushed himself off, and left, trying his very hardest to maintain some level of dignity. 

Even more people stared at him on the subway ride back to his apartment complex, but it didn't bother him as much as the looks his fellow scientists gave him. He had long gotten used to how people reacted in public, and he didn't care, it was better than them seeing his face. 

Oddly enough mother always had the habit of pulling away their children when they looked at him for too long. Stuff like that happened often, strangers would look away for the sake of being "sensitive". Most people assumed Flug had some kind of monster face underneath the bag. He preferred to keep his reason for wearing it ambiguous, that way no one would know exactly how insecure he was. 

Flug always took off the bag when he got inside his home where there were no people who could see him. He didn't hate his face, he didn't mind looking at it, it was normal, if anything a little boyish, it was other people seeing it that was the problem. He knew his behavior was irrational, but he couldn't help it. 

After toeing off his shoes in the door way of his house and removing his bag he flopped down roughly on the couch, rubbing the bridge of his nose and sighing at the oncoming stress-induced headache. He flicked on the television and scrolled through the various news channels, trying to distract himself, lest he begin to contemplate his poor life decisions too deeply. 

This whole situation was growing more and more hopeless as the months dragged on with no sign of progress. He knew he would end up having to move soon, if something didn't come up, he would have to pack up his crap and find a city where he hadn't exhausted all his opportunities. 

Flug briefly recalled the very painful incident that was desperately applying for a job at a convenience store and being turned away because one: the bag, and two: he was overqualified. He was stuck in a terrible jobless loop wherein even small part time places, where he would apply to work temporarily, would turn him down because they thought a highly trained engineer applying was some kind of joke, and places that actually hired engineers turned him away because they also thought he was a joke. He needed to pay the rent. 

Nothing seemed to be working. 

Flug wanted to cry. 

Instead he ordered $20 in Chinese food that he should not have been able to afford and ate it in a depressing cross legged position on his couch, staring mindlessly at the television, not really listening. Something about a fire a few blocks away, a missing elderly man, the body of someone being fished up out of the nearby bay. Flug wondered for a moment how the man got in the lake before deciding that ultimately, he did not care. 

In hindsight he probably should have. 

\---

The police were worked into a frenzy over the body of Dr. Iscariot.

A local fisherman had caught his blue and bloated corpse while trawling and called 911 in a panic. 

The victim had been shockingly easy to identify, due to the man's distinguishing characteristics and the easy match the body made to the already existing missing persons file. His cause of death, however, was a mystery, given the numerous and horrendous wounds on his body, no one could tell if it was evisceration or strangulation that ultimately did him in. Various officers had made crude office bets on the autopsy results, only to be disappointed when they had came back inconclusive.

The case of Dr. Iscariot was a peculiar one. He had been gone for 3 years, and was a very distinguished scientist in his field. He had left home one day to go to work, but never arrived, and never came home again. The man was older, lacking in any real family or friends, but his disappearance had gained a fair amount of media traction given his work. He was an expert in the field of weapons development, and many rumors and theories had circulated speculating about the motive behind his supposed kidnapping, anything ranging from "take by villains" to "offed by his own jealous peers". Some of the theories got real wild, one even speculated that he had faked the whole thing and actually ran away in attempts to flee some sort of shadow government bent on manipulating him and using his inventions for evil. 

Still, no one knew what actually happened to the doctor, and after a while with nothing but dead leads, law enforcement had begun to consider it a cold case. Even after the discovery of his body they were still just as confused and just as clueless. The scene was gruesome sure, but there were still no obvious clues and certainly nothing conclusive. No finger prints, no stray fibers, nothing. No one had any solid ideas about what could have possibly happened. 

In fact, there was only one person who knew the truth of what happened to Dr. Iscariot, and that was the man who had kidnapped him.

Black Hat. 

Maybe "man" was the wrong word to describe the other-worldly creature that had seen fit to steal the doctor away from his work one afternoon. Black Hat was one of those beings science struggled to explain, but with the presence of more and more intelligent and inhuman creatures coming to light, no one was inclined to scare too badly should they see a man with scales and gills wandering the streets, or in Black Hat's case, a terrifying shadowy demon.

But people would be right to fear him. 

Black Hat hardly even went out in public. His name was whispered like a myth between heroes and villains alike. He was said to be an arms dealer of sorts who sold incredibly dangerous and effective weapons to only the most exclusive of buyers. He was said to be involved in all sorts of shady dealings with underground organizations, terrorists, corrupt politicians, and the most infamous of villains. According to the stories he would cut out the tongues of those who over shared about him, and he would skin anyone who refused to pay and hang their dripping, mangled corpses from the telephone lines right in the center of the city. 

No one ever came forth with any proof that these tales were more than just paranoid fiction, but it quickly became the general consensus that Black Hat was best not talked about in the open.

Dr. Iscariot was one of Black Hat's victims. No one had linked the death of the doctor to the myth of the demonic dealer, it seemed too farfetched. Black Hat often relied on his status as a sort of urban ledgend to assure that he got away with his very real crimes, it had worked near flawlessly since the start of his business a few decades ago. 

The doctor was a former employee of Black Hat, not that Iscariot had taken the position consensually. Very few people ever did. The demon would choose who he wanted to work for him and take them on, willingly or not, to guarantee he had the best possible employee to create the best possible weapons. Quality was very important, means and morality, less so. 

Once someone was part of Black Hat INC they stayed that way until they passed, of natural causes or otherwise. On average his inventors would last about 7 years, but this one had proved to be a bit of a disappointment. While Iscariot was a smart man in the lab he was stupid to ever think that he could cross Black Hat and get away unscathed. The doctor had attempted to poison his boss, in some sort of last ditch effort to flee his captor, but of course, it hadn't worked, given that Black Hat was not human and had none of the same human weakness poor Dr. Iscariot had thought him too. Despite the fact that the attempt was failed and did ultimately nothing, Black Hat did not take kindly to betrayal, and the knowledge that the doctor was likely to try something potentially more effective in the future, should he give him the chance, was enough cause that the demon saw fit to "end their contract". 

Dumping the body in the river seemed to work just fine as a means of disposal whenever this happened. Black Hat just hoped police never caught on to the pattern of talented, sometimes notable, scientists washing ashore every few years. They hadn't seemed to yet. 

While Black Hat was enthusiastic enough about the prospect of "firing" Dr. Iscariot, it wasn't long afterwards that he realized he would once again have to find a replacement. That was always a hassle, given that he would have to halt production for a few weeks in order to hunt for a new inventor. 

Currently Black Hat was seated at his desk, he stared blankly out into the dark red room, tall and segmented with grey stone arches that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. He had been flipping through the newspaper for any mention of scientific progress, a new ray gun or force field on the market for super heroes. Usually he would use the media to find someone skilled enough, but all the names dropped were of painfully average people often taking sole credit for the work of a larger team. No one stood out to him and he was growing frustrated, knowing that soon he would have to resort to leaving the confines of his headquarters and start physically searching. 

He growled low with frustration, crumpled up one paper and sent it hurtling across the room. It dissipated into a ball a deep purple fire before it could even hit the ground. 

"Goddamnit!" He stood up and sharply kicked his anger out on the leg of his unsuspecting desk. It had been a week already and he was making no progress just sitting idle, hoping for some unholy miracle. 

He picked up another magazine in one last effort and flipped quickly through the pages before his eyes landed on an advertisement at the very back of the issue. In was for a contest that would be held at the city convention center next Friday. Skilled inventors would enter in hopes of wining grant money, they would submit various devices to a panel of judges that would determine the level of craft and effectiveness of each in the field of heroics. 

They would be inventing weapons. 

Black Hat figured that if he had to go out looking he might as well start somewhere a great number of talented scientist were guaranteed to be. 

\---

Flug was dozing half awake and half aware in his living room when he heard the frantic, angry knocking on his door. He instantly knew who it was. 

The land lady.

Mrs. Wilson was withered, old, and terrifying. And Flug hadn't paid the rent in four months.

"Open up you little freak! I know you're in there I can hear the TV!" Her voice was shrill and she was very clearly fed up. He had pushed her to the breaking point and while he knew what was coming next he couldn't bring himself to leave the couch and attempt to diffuse the situation. All he could do was timidly pull is legs up to cradle them against his chest and swallow the lump forming in his throat. "Answer me!" Mrs. Wilson's knocks increased in force and speed, and Flug flinched.

The knocking stopped abruptly and he heard her start to pace rapidly up and down the hallway, like a rabid animal, the plastic soles of her shoes slapping quickly and unevenly against the un-carpeted floor. 

"Fine!" She screeched, sounding way to close to the door. "I've had just about enough of you kid. Thinking you can freeload on my property all day! I didn't want to have to do this but you've left me with no other choice!" He heard her slam something into the wood of his door. "You've got three weeks!" She huffed and stormed off down the hall, as quickly as she had came, hopefully she was going straight back to her own apartment. 

Flug knew what the old woman had just stuck to his door, he didn't really need to get up, slip on his bag, and step outside to look at it, but he did anyways, out of some sort of morbid need. He opened the door quietly, spotting it instantly. It was a simple and unimportant looking piece of paper, but the big black letters that read "EVICTION NOTICE" at the top told him that that was hardly the case. He yanked it off, along with the piece of tape that had been used to seal it there, and held it with both his hands, looking down on it like someone had just handed him a list of his life's biggest failures and told him to read it aloud.

He stood stone still and started at it for a long, tense moment before sighing. He had, for the most part, resigned himself to fate. In a way, he had given up. 

Not fully paying attention he just barely caught a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye. Looking up he spotted down the hallway, glaring death and malice into him from just around the corner, was Mrs. Wilson. Her gnarled hands and tree branch joints pointed at him in a gesture that mocked and taunted 'you're next'. 

Feeling panic strike him like an ice pick to the skull Flug quickly fled back into his apartment. And suddenly he was unraveling again, for the millionth time, struggling to breathe and pressing himself hopelessly into any solid object like if he tried he could find something strong enough to bare the weight of his circumstances. 

Flug was about to be homeless. 

He supposed that he could move back with his parents, but knowing them they probably wouldn't like that very much. They always expected so much of him and moving back in with them after school was an act they would no doubt interpret as defeat. He had called them up before, when he had first had trouble paying the rent, but they were angry. They started yelling at him, complaining about how they had already contributed so much to his schooling and that he was going to have to prove that their money hadn't gone to waste and make it on his own. The conversation had been, to put it lightly, depressing. 

He might as well cross that option off the list. 

Flug then remembered his friend from college, Dr. Warren. They had been fairly close over the past four years, considering they had ended up in many of the same classes and programs. Flug wouldn't exactly call Warren a friend more than he would a colleague, the nervous doctor wasn't too skilled at making friends, as much as he sometimes wished he was. Semantics aside, the other doctor was the only person he could think of who he was familiar enough with and that might be willing to put him up temporarily. The only problem being that the man lived on the other side of the country and with his new wife and a baby on the way Warren wasn't likely to have the time or patience to put up with Flug for too long, if at all. 

He entertained the idea of calling the man, trying to reason with himself that, despite his social anxiety, it couldn't hurt to try. 

Flug took one more long, hard look at the eviction notice and figured that denial wasn't doing him any favors. This wasn't a problem that would go away if he ignored it. No. He had to do something. 

The doctor relaxed, focused, slowed his rapid breathing, and dragged himself forcefully back to the present. Standing up straight and removing himself from the shelf he had collapsed into he walked back into his living room, retrieved his phone, and dialed Warren's number. 

It rang three times before the man picked up. 

"Flug!" Warren's over zealous attitude was often difficult for the introvert to deal with, but he had put up with it all throughout college and he could do it now. "It's been months buddy, I was afraid you had forgotten about me."

"Ha ha," Flug forced a laugh. "I don't think I ever could."

"Well I'm glad to hear from you again? How are things going?" 

"They're... Ok." The doctor was reluctant to talk much about his problems so quickly when the other was trying to catch up. "How about you?"

"Oh it's just great over here, you know, Emily is due in two week and I'm ecstatic. I just got a promotion too so you know, better pay but more work. I really want to just spend time with my wife and all, but at least I know I'm providing for them." As Warren rambled on Flug felt more and more shitty at the idea that his colleague, who had once looked up to him, was already settled in and supporting a family while he was struggling (and failing) to so much as keep his apartment. Shaking the feeling, Flug spoke up.

"It's good to hear things are going so well for you Warren." 

"Thanks man. Hey- so- why did you call? Not that I'm not happy and all, but usual you have a reason when you go out of your way to talk. I know you aren't the 'just to see how you're doing' type of guy. No offense." 

"None taken." Warren was right. He usually was. "Well to be honest, I'm having some problems..." Flug was reluctant to disclose the nature of said problems.

"Hmm, I thought that might be the case. So what kind of problems are you having? Friends? Parents? Girlfriend? ...Boyfriend?" 

"No no no." He quickly corrected, embarrassed at the others implications. "It's nothing social... well maybe." 

"What is it then?" Flug hesitated.

"I'm having problems finding a job." 

"Oh." Well that was humiliating. "Honestly I wasn't expecting that. I mean you are a little... awkward, but you're a genius, it be a huge mistake not to hire you." 

"I wish other people thought that way, sadly that's not the case."

"It's their loss." Warren paused for a moment, he seemed to be thinking. "If you can't find a job you're just gonna have to freelance. I know there are some grants you can apply for, especially in your city." That was an idea that hadn't occurred to Flug. He didn't know why, maybe in his ignorance he assumed that getting a job was the only next logical step, or perhaps he wanted a job so badly for the structure he knew it would provide. 

"That's actually a pretty good idea." 

"You sound surprised. I do have a Doctorate you know." He teased. "Come to think of it, I actually heard that there's this contest that gets hosted in your area every year. It awards a $100,000 grant to the winner. Someone told me about it back when I was in school, it had something to do with heroics, I know that's your thing."

"Wow, really?" Flug dared to sound hopeful. "What's it called." 

"I think it's called the Annual Contest for Progress, or something lame and catchy like that, but it's supposed to be a big deal." 

"This is actually great Warren, thanks, thanks so much for telling me about this." 

"No problem buddy, good luck with it. You can always call me if you need anything, got it?" The other doctor reassured him, and for the first time in a long time Flug didn't feel completely hopeless. 

"Got it." 

"It was nice talking to you but I've got to go. Stay in touch!"

"Will do." 

Warren hung up.

Flug had forgotten to ask about staying with him, but that didn't matter anymore, there was an alternative. He wouldn't have to sleep on anyone's couch. He wouldn't have to move back in with his disappointed parents. He was going to enter this contest and he was going to win. He was going to pay his goddamn rent. 

Flug smiled to himself.


End file.
